Tracking Athletes’ Workouts: An EFS Roundtable Discussion
With
Zach Even-Esh, Mark Bell, and Mark McLaughlin
Zach Even-Esh: Fellas, for the athletes you train, how are you
tracking progress? Do you have all workouts recorded, or do you only
record testing? Or do you not record at all?
James, I recall in Syracuse, New York, you stated that at the high
school you were working at the method used was optional. You said that
some recorded their work and some didn’t, and you allowed them to choose
their own path. Now, as a college coach, what are you and Buddy Morris
doing to track/monitor the workouts?
Mark, do you have high school athletes? If so, what are you using to
track their progress? Keep me posted fellas.
I snagged a warehouse, and we’re opening after Memorial Day weekend.
Right now, we don’t track each workout. My philosophy was to always go
by what the athletes felt. However, the real reason was because I
coached five athletes at a time and it would be insane. Often times my
athletes perform two movements back to back. I’d be writing more than
coaching.
I may create a file where they can grab their own log and record
workouts themselves. Workouts will be posted on dry erase boards with
3–4 week training blocks. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions? I’m
all ears!
Mark Bell: I have a few high school kids. However, my focus is
on powerlifting. They should make a little progress with every workout.
This isn’t tracked though. The improvements they make show up every time
they do a squat, bench, or deadlift.
I haven’t gotten into coaching athletes outside the weight room. I’ll
give a kid a diet and a running program and explain it to them all day
if they want me to. However, I’m not going to hang around a track or
field all day.
Personally, I think anyone who is new should be writing the key
exercises down for the day. But they should do it after the workout.
They should write notes about how they felt while training. This will
help them when they look back on that day and try to remember what
happened. With that being said, I always think the key is hard work.
Sounds like you get your athletes working plenty hard!
Zach Even-Esh: Yea bro, that might be an idea—to track the
workout when they stop and rest or after a workout. However, we had the
entire thing rolling. If you weren’t doing your set, you had to coach or
spot (or both) the other lifters.
I don’t know if they’ll remember everything exactly when they write down
their workouts so I’m going to give it a go and make adjustments as we
go along. Does anyone else want to contribute? That would be bad ass. Oh
yea, Mark, one of the graduating seniors is heading to Johns Hopkins to
play football. He weighs 225–228 lbs and trap deadlifted 585 lbs
yesterday without any problems. Good stuff.
Mark Bell: My training partner, Scott Cartwright, keeps track
of nearly everything just like James Smith does. Scott is very
goal-oriented and logging the numbers in a spreadsheet helps him
remember what he did in other workouts. The goal is for him to come back
to a similar exercise every 4–6 weeks and get a PR. What has really
helped Scott push it to the next level has been his ability to focus in
on a big PR of 20 lbs or more. A 5-lb PR is cool, but in my mind, it
doesn’t show much progress.
Having a forum on your website may be a great way for the kids to share
information and write out their training logs. Otherwise, perhaps the
kids can post their workouts on MySpace. Let’s face it—that’s what kids
do all fucking day. This will let them see what the other guys are up
to, and they can network and learn from each other.
Keeping track of progress helps the kids focus in on goals. I would have
them only track 1–3 things for the day though. Have them write it down
after training with your help.
Zach Even-Esh: I was toying with the idea of keeping things
the way they are, testing every six weeks on some core lifts that we
use, and tracking their progress like that. However, tracking the
workouts AFTER they train is great. I like that idea. In the future, I’d
like to be able to license my gym. It will be the “Underground Strength
Zone.” For this reason, I want to systematize it so I can have another
coach follow suit. I really want to be more accountable too.
Every now and then, I get a kid who makes slower than fuck progress or
who takes forever to come back from an injury so I want to analyze this
more but not overanalyze! I’ll have workouts posted on dry erase boards
in 3–4 week training blocks. My wrestlers seem to respond best to the
Bondarchuk complex that you explained to me, James. My football guys
respond best to upper/lower splits. I haven’t pre-planned the deload
phases because all of these guys respond differently. We deload when I
see the need to deload and when they agree/communicate the need as well.
Some guys deload for one week and others for two weeks. This is why I
don’t like dictating when we do or don’t deload.
I’m looking forward to more, guys. Anyone with workout log samples, feel
free to email me. That would be cool. Also, anyone who ever needs to pop
in to train or wants a place in central New Jersey for a seminar, let me
know. The door is always open.
Zach Even-Esh: Shit, James. That was fucking awesome. Now I
want to fly up to Pittsburgh and pick your brain more about program
design. I feel like I always have to start over when we speak or when
you speak and I listen. Ha, ha.
With high school athletes, what have you found to work best (on average)
for the time before a planned deload, and how long was the deload for?
With your high school athletes, were you following the Bondarchuk
complex or the upper/lower split? With your college athletes now, are
there any differences in programming with the football team regarding
their positions, or do they all follow the same training split/program
design? And who the hell has a sample workout chart for athletes to
record their progress?
Mark McLaughlin: I track all of the workouts, and I base
progress on empirical data for the athletes given sport and certain
age-defined benchmarks. Also, because I have the Omegawave and know
where the biological markers for elite athletes should be for the sport
that they play, we can see how our training is getting us closer to
these goals. Currently, I run a two week on, one week unload cycle and
then I repeat this one more time.
James, in regards to the Bondarchuk seminar, this is the way it is. For
my seminar with Val Nasedkin and Michael Hope in March, I sent out over
500 emails plus direct mail. I also made phone calls, sent news
releases, posted on EFS and my site, and gave my athletes flyers to take
to their coaches. We had 15 people sign up. Not one coach from Oregon
came, yet it still ended up being the most productive seminar I’ve ever
attended. Maybe the time of year wasn’t ideal? Summer is the peak time
for private performance gyms, colleges have summer football training,
and people are taking vacations and doing many other things. Putting
these seminars on and organizing them isn’t as easy as it sounds no
matter who you have coming to present.
Mark Jackass Bell is the owner and coach of Super Training gym in
Sacramento. Super Training currently has two, 800-lb pound benchers,
three, 1000-lb squatters, and five lifters who have totaled over 2000
lbs. Mark has the highest total in California history with a 2502-lb
total at 308 lbs. His best lifts are a 1025 squat, an 804 bench, and a
716 deadlift. Mark has made some of the most informative powerlifting
DVDs ever seen with his Never Enough series. Mark is featured in the
upcoming documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster, which will be in select
movie theaters nation wide May 30th. For further information about Super
Training check out www.supertrainingGym.com.
Zach Even–Esh is a performance coach for athletes and the owner of
the Underground Strength Gym in Edison, New Jersey. You can learn more
about his methods at http://ZachEven-Esh.com or
http://UndergroundStrengthCoach.com.
Elite Fitness Systems strives to be a recognized leader in the
strength training industry by providing the highest quality strength
training products and services while providing the highest level of
customer service in the industry. For the best training equipment,
information, and accessories, visit us at www.EliteFTS.com.
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